


Everything You Knew

by angelholme



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-08
Updated: 2010-03-08
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:33:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelholme/pseuds/angelholme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during "Tabula Rasa", Tara considers the changes in her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything You Knew

_Before..._

As the girl - was Willow her name? - fell on to her Tara felt something she had never felt before. No - that wasn't true. She had felt it - or she thought she had felt them. Feelings of warmth. Of devotion. Of... of love. She did not know why this girl should arouse such feelings - for all she knew they were complete strangers. And from what she knew of Willow the girl was attracted to Alex. But if she was then why was Willow staring at her so caringly while Alex fought for his life a little way down the sewer? Could it be... could it be that Willow felt the same for her?

It made no sense, yet it made more sense than anything in her life. This girl - this stranger - was more familiar to her than anyone had been in her life up to that point. Her touch, her eyes, her smile - she knew them all and loved them all dearly.

She saw Willow lean towards her for a soft kiss... then everything changed...

_During..._

In a second it all came back to her. She remembered Glory destroying her mind and turning her inside her self. She remembered Willow coming to her rescue and bringing her back... back to herself and back to Willow.

She remembered the love she felt for the young woman on top of her - the first time they met, their first kiss, their first night spent together in endless passion. She remembered her tears at Joyce's death and her tears as Buffy fell in battle. The love she had felt a second ago for the stranger she had somehow known better than anyone else.

She also remembered the violation of her mind - the woman she loved and trusted more than anyone in the world had raped her mind and stripped her memory. The abuse of power, of magic and of the trust they had built between them.

As the magic faded she remembered the promise Willow had made her - to stay off magic for a week. She looked back in to her lover's eyes and saw the guilt... but not the remorse. She wasn't sorry she had tried, she was just sorry it hadn't worked.

In that second all the hate and hurt she had felt on first discovering Willow's abuse came back to her, but it came back ten times stronger. She knew she could not stand to be in the same room with this woman - this woman she had loved - this woman who had hurt her more than she had thought possible.

_After..._

She knew Dawn would be waiting at the door. During Buffy's absence the previous summer, she and Willow had become foster mothers for the young girl. To Dawn they were something stable in her life. A rock - something she could rely on.

And now... now that rock was about to shatter. After the first time she had been almost prepared to forgive Willow, but after the events in the sewer she knew that she had to get out of the house - to leave Willow for a while. She loved her - that was not in any doubt in her mind. But the anger and disgust she felt inside her at what her lover had done had to have time to cool down before she could talk to her again.

Willow was crying in the bathroom, but she did not give the woman she had shared a bed with for nearly a year a second thought. It was Dawn that concerned her now. Dawn - who had never done anything wrong. Dawn - an innocent who was about to be caught up in the fight between her and Willow. Dawn - the girl who was standing in front of her with an accusing expression on her face.

She reached out to her, to offer comfort - to try to explain why she had to go even though she didn't want to. She reached out her arm but Dawn turned and fled in to the house. She glanced down at the box in front of her. It contained everything she had brought from the dorm nearly four months before when she had moved in to the Summer's house to take care of Dawn following her sister's death. It contained her whole life for over a quarter of a year. It contained everything she and Willow had shared in that time.

Without looking back at the house Tara picked up the box and walked away, not knowing when, or if she would be back...

**Author's Note:**

> I am not Joss Whedon (however much I wish I were) and this is just for fun and frolics.


End file.
